4 week checkup

Rain moving over Cortona

So much happens in every day that each feels like a week, and I’ve been in Italy four weeks in actual time, however we’re defining that. I’ve tried to keep up here, tracking each day trip and longer-term location, what I did, what I ate, what I felt, but time blurs in that blessed vacation way, and I’m also attempting this thing where I write, or paint, or read, etc. when I feel I want to, versus when I think I am expected to by the rules I made for myself.

But let’s rewind: A week ago, I drove from Roccastrada to Cortona, listening to Taylor Swift’s Evermore in the car, specifically ‘Tolerate It’ and ‘Happiness,’ if you want to know the depths of the sad girl spring moment, and then spent the afternoon into the evening sobbing and snotting all over my little twin bed at the lovely Hotel Villa Marsili. (Full Cortona rundown and meditation on grief coming soon.)

And two weeks ago, I drove from Bagno Vignoni to Livorno to visit college/high school friends for Easter because the pull of the liturgical calendar is set deep in the bones; we ate takeout pizza, drank grappa off an ice luge in an apartment paid for by the U.S. Navy, and watched late-aughts pop music videos while a cross-wind blew off the sea and all the doors slammed. (What I saw of Livorno in my 15 hours there looked like the approach to Newark Airport so probably skipping that post.)

And three weeks ago, in Bologna, I rode the bus in the sun to make fresh tortellini in the morning and in the evening, it rained as I walked under medieval porticoes to meet my Italian tutor Federico’s brother Fabrizio’s girlfriend Arianna for aperitivo and dinner. (Will soon explain the Italian tutor history/connection.)

Four weeks ago, my second day in Milan, I went to Elena and Giampaolo’s house for dinner when I thought I would meet a crew of international friends at least one of whom would probably fall in love with me and thereby validate my existence on earth, but I was the only one there after all and isn’t that the lesson of the whole trip?